The Spirit of Crane

I have always loved cranes ever since I saw a Nat'l Geo special that featured their mating dance when I was 8 or 9. The way they spread their huge white wings and leaped into the air made Baryshnikov look like a piker. I loved the Japanese origami cranes we folded for luck for my ex-roomie Chicaco's wedding. Loved them even when we had to fold a thousand and my fingers were cut and kinda numb. She was a beautiful traditional bride and she believed those cranes ensured her happiness. Maybe they did. I have lost track of her over the years so it is possible.

But I have never seen a crane in the wild.

This past weekend while I was birthday letterboxing with Phil (more about that later), we passed a field with 2 large birds. Light tan in color. Somewhere in size between a turkey hen and a heron. We passed them more than once and I wondered what they were. Finally somewhere on the backroads of Wisconsin I saw 2 close enough to the road to investigate. I turned the car around and parked it on the shoulder of the road to observe a pair of these birds. I noticed that one had a distinctive red 'cap'. I puzzled about that for all of about 2 seconds before I excitedly announced that these were sand hill cranes! After than we began to see them everywhere - sometimes in groups, but most often in pairs almost always in the barren parts of the plowed field. They were quite wary of us and this picture is the best I could get. Hoping that the red cap of this male shows up.

Cranes were everywhere and yet I had never seen one. Of course I wonder why. Why now? What message is it that the cranes are trying to bring? The cranes we had seen were certainly NOT the white cranes I had envisioned from Japanese paintings. Why were they brown? It turns out that the cranes are naturally lighter colored, but because they feed so often in the mud and then preen with muddy beaks, they take on a more brownish mud color. I'm sure it's quite effective from hiding you from predators as well. Maybe that's why the sand hills have survived better. Why were they mostly in pairs?

Sand hill cranes are not endangered like their relatives the whooping cranes. They nest in the area of Wisconsin and Michigan through which we were traveling. That cranes mate for life. That the chicks are referred to for some unknown internal taxonomical joke as colts (HAHAHA!).

A bit if reading reminds me that cranes are graceful despite their ungainly legs and body size. That they are patient, secretive, elegant and mysterious. They are associated with good fortune and I will take all of that I can get. But what specific message did they bring? That I don't know yet. But I will be sitting in meditation with them to find out so stay tuned.